Leader
by JolinarJackson
Summary: “And everybody’s lying.“ Eli slumped his shoulders, looking into Everett’s eyes with determination. “Everybody.“ He turned away and left. Everett listened to his steps fading away and wondered why he’d thrown away Eli’s trust so easily.


**Leader**

_Summary__: _"And everybody's lying." Eli slumped his shoulders, looking into Everett's eyes with determination. "Everybody." He turned away and left. Everett listened to his steps fading away and wondered why he'd thrown away Eli's trust so easily.

_Rating:_ T _  
Spoiler: Justice  
Setting:_ after _Justice__  
Beta:_ sheneya – thank you!

_Disclaimer: _I'm not making money with this fanfic. The tv-show _Stargate Universe_ and the characters appearing within it belong to their producers and creators. Any similarities to living or dead persons are purely coincidental and not intended.

This fanfiction contains massive spoilers for the episode _Justice_.

***

***

He'd done many things he didn't want to do.

His whole life, he'd been an obedient soldier and it had made him happy.

But the clean façade of the institution in which Everett believed since he was nineteen years old had begun to crumble lately. It wasn't O'Neill - the general seemed to be caught between the IOA and the president, himself - it was everything that had happened on board the _Destiny_ here.

He'd killed people before in his life as a soldier, in the war or in a situation in which his own life was at stake, or because of an order which always left the bitter aftertaste of knowing that he'd done the wrong thing. But he'd never murdered in cold blood, never consciously looked at someone and sentenced him to death with only one move.

He hadn't pulled a trigger, he had only had turned around and left.

The result was the same.

Everett had killed Rush, the scientist was lying on a desert planet somewhere out there, starving, dying of thirst without the chance to return to the _Destiny_ ever.

Everett groaned and pushed the balls of his hands into his eyes, trying to fight down the nausea which was overwhelming him at the thought.

What kind of leader was he? Did he want to erase his conflicts that way from now on?

What Rush had done had been wrong, but that didn't justify Everett's deed. His wife Emily would be so disappointed in him. He'd sunk to Rush's level and he couldn't claim that he'd done it to protect the community. Rush had been important to them, he'd understood the _Destiny_ best and used the Ancient's language fluidly.

Rush was dead.

"Colonel."

Everett looked up, his elbows propped up on his desk, recognizing Eli standing at his door. He cleared his throat. "What's the matter?"

"I was wondering …"

Eli entered when Everett waved to him to come closer and stopped a couple of steps away from the desk, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket.

"… if you found out something about the spaceship."

"No," Everett answered quickly and smiled at Eli.

Eli didn't return the gesture.

Eli had liked Rush, at the very least he'd looked up to him as a brilliant scientist. They'd been suprisingly close if one considered that Rush was a manipulative bastard and Eli a nice boy. Rush even seemed to actually like Eli.

And Everett had killed him.

"The rockslide -- Dr. Rush was about to tell me something about the ship when it started. So …" He cleared his throat again. "No."

The boy was just looking at him.

"Something on your mind, Eli?" He asked this impatiently.

"No," he answered, "just … get well soon."

Everett's fingers brushed the bandage on his forehead. "Thank you."

Eli turned away and was already half-way out the door, when he turned to Everett again. "One more thing. How did you escape?"

He knew.

Everett swallowed. "I told you … Dr. Rush …"

Eli nodded hesitantly. "Sure. But why didn't you try to help him? He couldn't -- he couldn't have been dead right away. The rocks weren't that big."

Eli knew.

Of course, Everett knew his file, the boy wasn't stupid … anything but. Sometimes Everett forgot that fact. Whenever Eli obeyed his orders like the good little soldier he shouldn't be, whenever he defended his KINO documentary.

Eli was a mathematical genius, he had a logical intellect. Everybody knew that Everett and Rush had despised each other. Rush had pinned a murder charge on Everett, Everett had found out.

And he'd come back alone from a planet on which he and Rush had been the only people left. One didn't have to be a genius to not at least suspect that more than a rockslide had happened, the others possibly suspected nothing because they'd hated Rush.

But Eli ... Eli saw through him.

"He was dead, Eli, there wasn't enough time left … not enough time."

Eli ducked his head and turned away.

"Eli …," Everett said. The young man stopped and turned round to face him again, his facial expression showed only a hint of mourning, dominated by uncertainty and primarily disappointment.

Everett didn't know how he did it again and again, make people look at him that way. His father when he'd told him that he'd rather join the army than study medicine, TJ, as he'd told her that he wouldn't leave his wife, Emily, when he'd told her that he couldn't come home for a while … at least not as the man whom she was used to.

And now Eli.

"I don't know what to tell you." He sighed. "I'm sorry."

Eli nodded.

"Are you -- are you okay?" Everett asked and Eli's eyes pinned him to his chair.

"Yeah." He laughed rather helplessly. "Why wouldn't I be? Everybody's lying and too busy showing off with all kinds of special skills to care for each other, I mean -- we had a trial even before we had some kind of -- peaceful get together. My mom thinks that I'm too busy to visit her, the ship's falling apart and the only one who understands it isn't here, so everyone thinks that I'm the expert now because I spent time with Rush and they're throwing questions at me I can't answer … and everybody's lying." Eli slumped his shoulders, looking into Everett's eyes with determination. "Everybody." He turned away and left.

Everett listened to his steps fading away and wondered why he'd thrown away Eli's trust so easily.

END

JJ 01/10


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